Dan Duryea

One of the best known and most effective movie villains of the postwar years, actor Dan Duryea specialized in truly unpleasant figures who lacked even a shred of moral decency in such popular screen e...
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Sometimes, you get stuck with a bad boss. Someone who makes you work weekends…or who, like, clips their nails at their desk. Maybe you’ve thought about quitting, but you’ve probably (we hope) never gone to extremes like the guys from Horrible Bosses 2. In honor of them – and anyone who’s ever dealt with a bad boss – here are some of the most cringeworthy bosses in movies and television.
1. Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in The Devil Wears Prada
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Miranda Priestly is probably the scariest kind of boss because she’s so calm about it all, even when she’s saying something completely soul-crushing.
2. Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell) in Horrible Bosses
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Ok so there are several awful bosses in this movie, hence the title, but we're singling out Bobby because he represents nepotism, incompetence and really bad combovers. He's also a raging cocaine addict. Bad, bad, bad.
3. Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole) in Office Space
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Lumbergh is the epitome of the annoying boss. He makes his employees work weekends, he's a stickler for pointless TPS reports, and he says things like "I'm gonna need you to..." right before assigning you a mundane task.
4. Michael Scott (Steve Carell) in The Office
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We love Michael Scott, but man did he make us cringe. Whether he was telling an inappropriate joke or running down one of his employees with his car, he was simply not meant to be a boss.
5. David Brent (Ricky Gervais) in The Office (UK)
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David Brent had even less of a clue than Michael Scott, if that's possible. He thinks his workers look up to him as a mentor, but they really don't respect him at all.
6. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) in Grey’s Anatomy
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We’ve seen Bailey’s softer side, but remember when she was known only as “The Nazi”? She kept those interns in line!
7. Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) in The Proposal
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This Canadian boss lady forces her assistant to pretend he’s her fiancé in order to avoid deportation. Not only is that totally awkward, it’s an HR nightmare! Thankfully Ryan Reynolds was very accommodating.
8. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) in Mad Men
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Granted Don Draper is good at what he does, but he’s kind of the worst boss. Just ask Peggy – she’s seen his bad side on more than one occasion. He sleeps with his secretaries, drinks during the day and takes frequent naps on the couch in his office.
9. President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in The Hunger Games
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He’s the boss of an entire country and he’s completely evil. Definitely not a person you want in charge. He sends children to fight to the death basically for his own amusement.
10. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) in Breaking Bad
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He wasn’t so much a boss as he was a, well, kingpin, but he still had complete control over his “employee” Jesse Pinkman. All that manipulation really made us cringe!
11. Maria Laguerta (Lauren Velez) in Dexter
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Over the course of Dexter, the fiercely ambitious Laguerta went from Lieutenant to Captain of the Miami Metro Police Department and never failed to make Debra Morgan’s life a living hell.
12. Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) in In Good Company
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At 26, he became the boss at an established sports magazine and was forced to manage people with way more experience than him – namely Dennis Quaid’s Dan Foreman. He was all about promoting “synergy,” despite having little to no clue what that actually meant.
13. Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) in Parks and Recreation
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Don’t get us wrong, we love everything about Ron Swanson - from his mustache to his deep and abiding love of red meat. But he works in city government and actively tries to make it less effective. Not exactly someone you want running things.
14. Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) in The Wolf of Wall Street
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Belfort represented Wall Street corruption at its worst. He ran his firm with no ethical standards, and when he was caught, he barely got any jail time! Most cringeworthy thing about this guy is that he actually existed!
Which on-screen boss makes YOU cringe? Let us know on Twitter!
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Just when 51-year-old Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) should be enjoying the fruits of his labor the successful ad sales exec's life suddenly takes a detour. First he is demoted from his long-term job when the magazine he works at is gobbled up by a multinational conglomerate. Then to add insult to injury Dan must answer to a new boss Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) a whiz kid half his age with no experience in ad sales. Carter may seem like your garden-type variety corporate climber but he is dealing with his own personal problems after being dumped by his wife (Selma Blair) of seven months. Dan's home life is equally topsy-turvy. Just as his oldest daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson) leaves the nest to start her first year of college Dan is shocked when his wife tells him she's pregnant. Somehow the two men find some common ground and form an uneasy friendship trying to keep the magazine--and its employees--from becoming victims of a corporate takeover. But their burgeoning relationship is put into jeopardy when Carter begins dating Alex. Uh-oh.
Dennis Quaid is at the top of his game. Bursting out on the scene in 2004 with no less than four films--The Alamo The Day After Tomorrow The Flight of the Phoenix and now In Good Company-- Quaid has definitely saved the best for last. The talented actor adds texture to Dan an old-school ad guy who has built his stellar reputation on a handshake but who is forced to shift gears ever-so-slightly to stop his life from unraveling. Similarly Topher Grace offers subtle and refreshing complexities to a character who could have easily been formulaic. He delicately shows how lonely and ultimately unfulfilled Carter is with his fast-moving corporate life. Carter does find some solace with the lovely Alex even if his affections may be a tad misplaced. Johansson does another nice job as Dan's independent daughter especially in her emotional scenes with Quaid but she is somewhat wasted when compared to her male co-stars.
The fact this film went through several title changes--first it was Synergy then Good Company to finally In Good Company--sent up some red flags but we need not have worried. Under the expert guidance of writer-director Paul Weitz who brought us the utterly delightful About a Boy Company's sweet sentimentality easily washes over you. Weitz has a knack for taking something not necessarily original and making it so. For example taking aim at the old school vs. new school in the corporate world isn't a new concept but at least Company gives a pretty real look at the inner workings of large company. It rarely goes the predicted clichéd route. Even when it does--say when Dan and Carter finally band together to save their sales team which of course you know they have to do--it's still done with a fresh perspective. Then by adding the personal touches between the characters especially the love story between Carter and Alex the film is only enhanced. Job well done.

Title

Broadway debut

Film debut in "The Little Foxes"

Summary

One of the best known and most effective movie villains of the postwar years, actor Dan Duryea specialized in truly unpleasant figures who lacked even a shred of moral decency in such popular screen efforts as "Ball of Fire" (1941), "Along Came Jones" (1945), "Winchester '73" (1950) and classic noir like "Criss Cross" (1949). A rare screen heel that could charm audiences despite his criminal acts, Duryea enlivened both minor and major features for over a decade, which later boosted him from character player to leading man in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with occasional forays into heroic roles, most notably in "Black Angel" (1946) and on the television series "China Smith" (syndicated, 1952-56). In the late 1950s, Duryea returned to character parts, playing more even-tempered if still deeply flawed men in "The Burglar" (1957) and "The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965) for Robert Aldrich, who cast Duryea in several of his feature efforts. Television became his primary outlet in the 1960s, where he essayed memorable turns on "The Twilight Zone" (CBS, 1959-1964), among countless other shows, while lending his Hollywood pedigree to low-budget efforts for international film producers. A versatile character actor for over 20 years, Dan Duryea proved that, at least in the film business, bad guys sometimes finished first.<p>Born Jan. 23, 1907 in White Plains, NY, Dan Duryea was the son of textile salesman Richard Duryea and his wife, Mabel. He began acting in his teenaged years as a member of the White Plains High School drama club, and considered pursuing as a career while majoring in English at Cornell University, where he replaced future star Franchot Tone as the president of the school's famed Dramatic Society. But after graduation, Duryea bowed to his parents' wishes for a more stable career by working in advertising. He toiled in the industry for six years before suffering a stress-induced heart, which spurred him to return to his first love, acting. In later years, he would confess to interviewers that he could summon up the required level of violence needed for his characters by imagining that his victims were his corporate employers from his advertising days.<p>After a period in summer stock, Duryea reportedly made his film debut with a bit role in an Argentinean film, "El tango en Broadway" (1934), which was filmed in New York City during his pursuit of theater roles on the Great White Way. The following year, he reached out to playwright Sidney Kingsley, who was mounting the Broadway debut of his new play, "Dead End." Duryea managed to secure a bit part in the production before assuming a larger role during its year-long run. From there, he tackled his first Western heel as Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse James, in the short-lived "Missouri Legend" (1938). Producer-director Herman Shumlin was taken by Duryea's ability to make even the most loathsome role watchable, and cast him as the weak-willed Leo in Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" (1939). When Samuel Goldwyn bought the film rights to the play, Duryea was brought to Hollywood to recreate his performance in the feature version with Bette Davis (1941), which began his long and celebrated screen career.<p>Almost immediately, Duryea became the go-to for malevolent supporting roles in Westerns and crime pictures. Tall and reed-thin, he possessed a baleful glare and a generous mouth that frequently curled into a sneer before splitting to let forth a mocking cackle - in short, the perfect physiological makeup to play a host of hoods, gunmen, rustlers, low-rent criminals and other undesirables who enjoyed brief moments in the spotlight before meeting their much-deserved, often violent ends. In the first decade of his career, Duryea played mostly supporting roles which allowed him to menace some of Hollywood's biggest leading men, from Gary Cooper in "Ball of Fire" (1941), "The Pride of the Yankees" (1941) and "Along Came Jones" (1945) to Edward G. Robinson in "The Woman in the Window" (1944) and "Scarlet Street" (1945). By the following year, he was firmly established as one of the movies' most popular character actors, as evidenced by his inclusion in a 1946 motion picture exhibitors' poll by <i>Motion Picture Herald</i> of the 10 most promising stars of the day. Duryea placed eighth on the list, trailing Zachary Scott and Eve Arden but ahead of Robert Mitchum.<p>In the late '40s, Duryea signed a lucrative contract with Universal, which provided him with not only financial stability, but also the option to freelance for other studios. He soon moved up to leading roles, playing deeply flawed heroes like his alcoholic composer in "Black Angel" (1946) and his real-life Western bandit "Black Bart" (1948). He was still best used as a supporting heavy, most notably as the gangster husband of Yvonne De Carlo in "Criss Cross" (1949) and as the unsavory hombre Waco in the Western "Winchester '73." But by the 1950s, Duryea had begun to play heroes in mid-level to low-budget adventure pictures. He was also top-billed on his own television series, "China Smith," as a white-suited soldier of fortune operating in Singapore. Most of the show's cast and production team were featured in Robert Aldrich's "World for Ransom" (1954), which starred Duryea as a slightly different adventurer also working in the Far East.<p>Television soon became Duryea's best showcase; there, he gave memorable turns as a broken-down gunfighter given a second chance in "Mr. Denton on Doomsday," the third episode of "The Twilight Zone," and a religious fanatic in a 1960 episode of "Wagon Train" (NBC/ABC, 1957-1965). He continued to work regularly in features, mostly B-grade efforts, though some had their admirers, especially "The Burglar" (1957), a late-period noir with Duryea as a professional thief contending with amoral partners. In 1965, he enjoyed one of his best sympathetic roles as a meek oil company accountant in Aldrich's "The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965).<p>By the late 1960s, Duryea was working in overseas productions like the Italian Western "The Hills Run Red" (1966) and the spy thriller "Five Golden Dragons" (1967) in West Germany while maintaining a regular presence on American television. He also appeared twice on the big screen with his son, character actor Peter Duryea, in the low-budget Westerns "Taggart" (1964) and "The Bounty Killer" (1965). From 1967 to 1968, he played Eddie Jacks, the estranged husband of Evelyn Scott, on "Peyton Place" (ABC, 1964-68), before making his final screen appearance in the science fiction adventure "The Bamboo Saucer" (1968). Not long after undergoing surgery to have a malignancy removed, Duryea died prematurely from cancer on June 7, 1968 at the age of 61, leaving behind a storied career as one of Hollywood's most admired screen baddies. <p><i>By Paul Gaita</i>

Name

Role

Comments

Peter Duryea

Son

Education

Name

Cornell University

Notes

"The heel with sex appeal." --From his obituary in The New York Times, June 8, 1968.